


What Is and What Should Never Be Coda

by leonidaslion



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wishes were never meant to be perfect...</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Is and What Should Never Be Coda

**Author's Note:**

  * For [schweedie](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=schweedie).



Pastor Jim was fond of that one. Trotted it out whenever Dean heard his father complaining about the pace of his training, or his utter inability to find any information on the thing that had killed mom, or, most often, his guilty rants about how he should have saved this woman, this man. How he wished he’d gotten there just a little sooner: been a little quicker on the uptake.

 _If wishes were fishes, John,_ Pastor Jim would start.

And Dad would say, _Save the sermons for Sunday and give me the damn bottle._

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“I wished for Mom to live,” he says, and it was everything he’d ever wanted it to be, and then again it wasn’t at the same time.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

That’s how Dad always said it, following it up with some kind of nonsense about turnips and watches, pots and pans. Dean never understood that bit, but he knew enough about horses to follow the first line, anyway. Had seen enough horses on a job one summer in Wyoming to understand that wishes were mean sons of bitches, and they’d bite your hand good and deep if you got too close.

Dean memorized the saying early—even the part he didn’t quite follow—and even later, when he finally understood that Dad wasn’t being literal, he held fast to the promise he made himself when he was six.

If wishes were horses, Dean Winchester wasn’t going to be adding to the herd.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“I wished for Mom to live,” he says, and it’s the one thing that he’s been holding onto all these years, despite his promises to himself. Something simple and clean that couldn’t possibly turn nasty on him.

Only it had.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 _If wishes were bullets, we’d never have to buy new ammo,_ Dean thought to himself in the painful years before Sammy left for college, when every other sentence out of his brother’s mouth started, “I wish we didn’t have to …” It was inelegant, and it didn’t flow as smoothly as Dad’s or Pastor Jim’s, but Dean figured that it explained things better than fishes or horses could, and he had more use for bullets than either of those things anyway.

“I wish we didn’t have to move again,” Sammy would complain, and Dean would count the cartridges in their box—just in case—but his brother’s wish was never there.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“I wished for Mom to live,” he says, and Sam nods at him like he knows. Like he understands what it was like in there. How good she’d smelled and how beautiful she was and how fucking wide Sam had smiled. How happy he’d been, without Dean in his life.

“Well I’m glad we do,” Sam says, and Dean believes him. Because Sam doesn’t know. He didn’t see.

But the knowledge is there, seared into Dean’s memory, and it’s never going to go away.


End file.
